Why word choice feels tricky

Most of us tend to choose safe words—the words popping in our mind first. These are the words everyone is using.

Everyday language is a good idea, because readers can quickly grasp your ideas. But when you use only everyday language, your content doesn’t stand out. You sound like everyone else. Your content lacks sparkle.

Writing is different from talking. When we speak we use hand gestures and facial expressions to add emotion and meaning to our words. But when we write, we can’t wink, we can’t smile, we can’t slam the table, and we can’t put our hands up in the air.

So, our written words have to work harder. Our words have to whisper or shout. Our words have to attract attention and engage. Our words have to express emotion.

This is why you need to infuse your writing with more emotional words, with colorful language, with a sensory touch. You need to push yourself gently outside your comfort zone and play with different words.

Examples of word choice

Have you ever studied how others choose their words?

And have you noticed how their words give you an impression of their personality?

Now, let’s compare this to a sales page for a yoga teaching class of Balance Yoga and Wellness. Try to imagine the type of teacher who’s written this:

Heart-centered yoga: Learn the foundations of Anusara yoga, including the loops and spirals, universal principles and more.

Balance your body and mind: Learn and apply ayurvedic principles to your diet and lifestyle so you get healthier and happier. Improve your sleep and digestion so your energy invigorates your students and others around you.

Spark your creativity: Make your own mala bracelets, eye pillows, clay models, and yantras. Tapping into your creative center will help to infuse a sense of playfulness into your teaching.

You may think that you aren’t cut out to teach yoga. Or that you aren’t advanced enough. But this is far from the truth. During our course you develop your own yoga practice. You build skills and grow in self-confidence.

Do you want to agitate and stir up fear? Or comfort, encourage, and soothe? How positive do you want to sound?

The dormant superpower for muscle growth waiting to be released if you only do this

Try this little-known way to make stand-to-stand bridges harder and increasingly more explosive without adding any external resistance

A jealously-guarded system for going from puny to powerful—when your life may depend on the speed of your results

The copy of Balance Yoga and Wellness is more straightforward about what you’ll learn and why:

Sequence a yoga class: Use creativity and knowledge of yoga postures to develop a balanced yoga class.

Use language effectively: Learn effective verbal cues for leading a yoga class.

Breakdown key yoga postures: Talk students into and out of yoga postures, what the fundamental alignment cues are for each postures.

Teach safely: Appreciate how our anatomy impacts different types of yoga postures, and learn how to modify yoga postures to avoid injury.

Curiosity-arousing phrases change the tone of your writing. Moreover, curiosity can nudge readers to take action—to satisfy their curiosity.

But it’s a fine balance as too much curiosity arousal can make your content flimsy, pushy, and hypey. In contrast, pairing benefits with features makes your content more substantial, straightforward, and honest.

A word choice exercise: Get out of a writing funk

Ready to explore your voice?

And play with different words?

Try the exercise below and experiment with your word choice. Try to impersonate different personalities. Also, pay attention to how your voice changes when you borrow phrases from, for instance, cooking, fighting, dating, or sports.

Word choice exercise

Complete the following sentence:

I’m a … and I’m on a mission to …

Examples:

The standard, drab version:

I’m a copywriter on a mission to improve web content.

The power-puncher:

I write powerful copy for explosive conversions and skyrocketing sales.

Another strong-armed copywriter:

I write damn good copy for businesses who must stand out in cut-throat competition.

The competitor:

I write the ultimate sales-boosting copy so you can give your competitors the middle finger.

The sparkling personality:

I’m a creative copywriter on a mission to add sparkle to boring web content.

I particularly love how you turned the copywriting example into eight different ‘personalities’. Such a great example! Interesting to think about what you want to portray. I might try doing a writing exercise and write down how I want to come across… and what descriptive words go with that to help get jump started.

That’s the clearest idea of “voice” I’ve ever had. Your wonderful examples of contrasting voices makes that squishy concept so concrete. And now I need to figure out how to bullet-proof my rotator cuffs…

I read lots of newsletters / blogs of ‘experts’ in the field… but none of them can beat you. I don’t know how you do it, but please keep doing it! Excellent examples again. I’ll start practicing right away. Thank you for the eye-openers and keep ’em coming please!

Your examples are so real that my muscles hurt from the exertion of imagining DragonDoor only to be soothed by visualizing Balance Yoga. It’s the perfect yin yang combination. The distinction is quite palpable.

Not to mention loads of fun.

Something you’ve long trained me to expect from your weekly posts.

Useful and fun with a sprinkle of serendipity and a spark of singularity.

Busy day; got here late today, but finally! Whew! I’m a grandmother I and rescue broken, wounded women desperately looking for someone with strength and knowledge, spiced with soft humor. I offer an enduring, hidden treasure, helping them see their way out of the pain of difficult situations, without physically walking away. You made me think about this all day. I was so sure I’d gotten it, but it sounds pretty salesy to me, still.

Oh, yes, that’s better. Thank you! You know, if I read that and think you wrote it, instead of me, it is lots better in my mind. I guess it’s a trick we play on ourselves, making it nigh impossible to feel good about self-aggrandizement? As for tightness, you are right, but I used to say: “I fix broken women.” Embellishing got carried away. 😉 Thanks, again!

It amazes me every time how you find the right words and examples to explain something as complicated as writing! I think it’s easier to explain how how to build a nuclear bomb than how to write so that it resonates. Because there are only so many ways to build a nuclear bomb, but there are as many ways to write well as there are people.

And of course the part with the exercise and the one-line examples is brilliant! Great to see how everyone started applying your advice immediately! I’d love to contribute my own, but I’ll need to think about it first. Fitting my thoughts inside one line is not exactly my strength, but I’m willing to learn 🙂

My secret is not to try to explain how to write, but answer just one tiny question about writing like: How does word choice influence voice? That makes it more doable. 🙂

I can’t remember how I came across that website of DragonDoor (I’m not their target audience!) but because its word choice is so “extreme,” they seemed like a great example.

Don’t try to write the one-liner (or two-liner) in one go. Just play around with it. I can’t remember how long it took me to come up with “an irreverent copywriter on a mission to stamp out gobbledygook” – probably a few months! 😉

Hi Henneke, what a great post, a bit over my head in strength but loved the Yoga type of description, Not looking forward to writing posts, hope that I’ll get something interesting together. I am on the last leg now to get that website set up. Thanks for all the posts I may have read but not commented on, my book is in the last edit and will be available at the same time as the Website. It’s been a long journey, but have also been around the world three times which took a lot of my time.

That’s such an amazing, helpful and enjoyable post.Your examples are Excellent. word choices, use of positive and negative emotions are very important to give words your voice.. I really enjoyed reading your post…

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About Henneke

I never saw myself as a writer, but in my early forties, I learned how to write and discovered the joy of writing. Now, I’d like to empower you to find your voice, share your ideas and inspire your audience.Learn how I can help you